In our custom LAME MT MP3 encoding test, we convert a large WAV file to the MP3 format, which is a popular scenario that many end users work with on a day-to-day basis to provide portability and storage of their digital audio content. LAME is an open-source mid to high bit-rate and VBR (variable bit rate) MP3 audio encoder that is used widely around the world in a multitude of third party applications.
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LAME MT MP3 Encoding Test |
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Converting a Large WAV To MP3 | |
In this test, we created our own 223MB WAV file (a hallucinogenically-induced Grateful Dead jam) and converted it to the MP3 format using the multi-thread capable LAME MT application in single and multi-thread modes. Processing times are recorded below, listed in seconds. Once again, shorter times equate to better performance.
The AMD Phenoms in this test are sadly outclassed by even the Core 2 Duo E6850 dual core system in both the single and multithreaded tests. Beyond that the rest of the numbers speak for themselves really. The Maingear Ephex was 23% faster overall versus the fastest reference system we put against it.
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POV Ray Rendering Test |
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Ray-Tracing Performance | |
POV-Ray, or the Persistence of Vision Ray-Tracer, is a top-notch open source tool for creating realistically lit 3D graphics artwork. We tested with POV-Ray's standard included benchmarking model on all of our test machines and recorded the scores reported for each. We shoudl also note that we used the latest 64-bit beta build of the program. Results are measured in pixels-per-second throughput.
More of the same is seen in our POV-Ray scoring, with a 20% advantage awarded to the Maingear Ephex, though both Intel quad-core setups blew all other configurations clean out of the water.
